Tuesday, 4 December 2012

Today is the turn of the lovely Jan Edwards. Jan has had over 30 published stories, plus articles, poetry and reviews, and is also an editor with the award winning Alchemy Press.

Can you tell us little bit about yourself?

Apart from herding the cats and chickens, you mean? Born in Sussex, now living in Staffordshire. I’m an ex-Master Locksmith; I am married to the lovely Peter Coleborn; edited both for the BFS and for Alchemy Press; have a fair number of short stories in print now; one mainstream novel out under my maiden name. I’m a Reiki Master in both Usui and Celtic traditions, a reader of tarot, occasional sculptor, herbalist, meditational healer, a compulsive reader and a sporadic plant wrangler. That’s about it I think.

Why did you decide to submit a story to this anthology?

Because I have always loved ghost stories and because Simon is a really nice guy!

Can you tell us what to expect from your story?

Concerning Events in Leinster Gardens is about Christmas past and present and also about the biter being bit. Or to put it another way it’s my take on that well known urban myth of Leinster Gardens.

What was the best and the worst Christmas present you ever received?

Best present for me was always book tokens! Forget sweetshops! The joy of going into a bookshop as a child with a whole ten shillings to spend on whatever I wanted was bliss. The worst? Can’t decide. Either the misery of those itch-fest woolly vests my Great-Aunt Dorothy used to send us kids way back when or else the horror of receiving kitchen appliances as a gift at any time!

Who or what would you least like to be haunted by at Christmas?

My mother. She was already one scary lady when she was alive...

Can you tell us about any future projects?

Following The Alchemy Press Book of Ancient Wonders, which I co-edited with Jenny Barber, comes The Alchemy Press Book of Urban Mythic. That should be out sometime in late 2013. I have five short stories waiting to be announced. The next hopefully will be in A-Z of Cities edited by Dean Drinkel and after that one for Stuart Hughes’ Stumar Press anthology series.